John Dewey
(1859-1952)Life and Works
. . Knowledge
. . Morality
Bibliography
Internet SourcesEducated in his native Vermont and at Johns Hopkins University, John Dewey enjoyed a lengthy career as an educator, psychologist, and philosopher. He initiated the progressive laboratory school at the University of Chicago, where his reforms in methods of education could be put into practice. As a professor of philosophy, Dewey taught at Michigan, Chicago, and Columbia University. He was instrumental in founding the
American Association of University Professors as a professional organization for post-secondary educators.
Drawn from an idealist background by the pragmatist influence of Peirce and James, Dewey became an outstanding exponent of philosophical naturalism. Human thought is understood as practical problem-solving, which proceeds by testing rival hypotheses against experience in order to achieve the "warranted assertability" that grounds coherent action.
The tentative character of scientific inquiry makes Dewey's epistemology thoroughly fallibilistic: he granted that the results of this process are always open to criticism and revision, so that nothing is ever finally and absolutely true.
This approach provides a significant opportunity for progress in morality and education, however.
In
"Logical Conditions of a Scientific Treatment of Morality" (1903), for example, Dewey tried to show how moral precepts develop and function as confirmable hypotheses.
Democracy and Education (1916)
describes in detail how an ability to respond creatively to continual changes in the natural order vitally provides for individual and community life.
Dewey's social theories shaped during his long association with
George Herbert Mead.
|
Recommended Reading:
Primary sources:
Secondary sources:
|  |
Additional on-line information about Dewey includes:
- Richard Field's detailed article in * The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Karen Hanson's article in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy.
- Related OCP articles on:
American philosophy,
philosophy of education,
philosophy of mind,
the pragmatic theory of truth, and
pragmatism.
- The thorough collection of resources at EpistemeLinks.com.
- The article in the Columbia Encyclopedia at Bartleby.com.
- Charles Lowney on Dewey's pragmatism.
- News from The Center for Dewey Studies.
- A paper on Dewey's individualism from S. Scott Zeman.
- a short article in Oxford's Who's Who in the Twentieth Century.
- Suzanne Rice on educational implications of Dewey's concept of virtue.
- a brief entry in The Macmillan Encyclopedia 2001.